Something out there is so transfixingly alive or present or powerful or deadly at that moment and one wants to kiss, consume, devour it. What types of spaces do characters occupy, what spaces exist between characters, even spaces between the words on a page? At what moments does an outer landscape become an internal and psychological landscape? There have been numerous times, and it’s usually when I’m walking outside, that this line from Plath’s poem, “Poppies in July,” runs through my brain: “If my mouth could marry a hurt like that.” There’s something so beautiful-and/or terrifying, or startling, or saturated in color and light-it hurts. And I want to know, while reading, how other authors capture the nuances, the sounds, the smells, the senses of a place. I happen to write about a particular place, an Alaska laden with myth and personal and familial history. I’m always thinking about place in fiction.
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